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Crime O'Clock

Crime O'Clock offers puzzling mysteries and a wholly unique premise.
Crime O'Clock Game Cover
67%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:story, gameplay
Most mentioned negative aspects:grinding, monetization
64% User Score Based on 278 reviews
Critic Score 71%Based on 9 reviews

Platforms

Nintendo SwitchPCMac OSWindows
Buy Nowfrom $1.72
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Crime O'Clock Game Cover

About Crime O'Clock

Crime O'Clock is a single player casual puzzle game with mystery, comedy and science fiction themes. It was developed by Bad Seed and was released on July 21, 2023. It received mostly positive reviews from both critics and players.

Crime O'Clock is an investigation and time exploration game with a deep storyline. Investigate cases through time and evolving maps by unveiling a multi-eras linked story. Will you be observant enough to solve the mysteries? Crime waits for no man!

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Crime O'Clock screenshot
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Reviews

64%Audience ScoreBased on 278 reviews
story55 positive mentions
grinding13 negative mentions
  • Unique and compelling hidden object gameplay with a time travel mechanic that lets players track characters and events across multiple time frames.
  • Beautiful, detailed black-and-white art style filled with numerous Easter eggs and pop culture references.
  • Relaxing and engaging for fans of 'Where's Waldo' style games and casual puzzle lovers, with additional content through side stories that add depth.
  • Gameplay is heavily linear with excessive hand-holding by an AI companion, limiting player freedom and exploration.
  • Frequent, simple, and repetitive mini-games interrupt the flow, being more tedious than enjoyable.
  • Slow pacing due to long unskippable dialogues, animations, and transitions, which cause frustration and reduce immersion.

  • story

    287 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    19% positive mentions, 75% neutral mentions, 6% negative mentions

    The story centers on a time-traveling detective preventing rogue AIs from altering the timeline, featuring a sci-fi mystery with diverse characters and pop culture nods. While the premise is engaging and the time-jumping mechanic adds intrigue, the narrative is heavily linear, overly guided, and frequently interrupted by repetitive mini-games and long dialogue, which many found tedious and disruptive. Players often praised the art and side stories for adding charm but criticized the main plot for being predictable, slow-paced, and hindering player agency, making the overall storytelling experience feel drawn-out and less immersive.

    • “Speaking of the rogue AIs, the story is that you are an operative trying to prevent the aforementioned rogue AIs from destroying the true timeline.”
    • “The basic concept of tracking a story through finding objects across time, solving mysteries by tracing them back to their source and finding ways to undo those temporal shifts, is genuinely engaging even with all the strong-arming. And the story is genuinely compelling - just excessively intrusive to the gameplay.”
    • “Crime o'clock is, at its heart, genuinely interesting: an investigation/spot-the-object simulator with a story about time travel that allows you to see how one scene changes throughout a whole day, cleverly making the five investigation areas feel like fifty as you track down what suspects were doing before, during, and after their crimes.”
    • “It was functional, though I was never engaged since I never got convinced why destroying the true timeline would be such a disaster, and while the story got another objective eventually it was carried with so little gravitas that I didn't engage with it.”
    • “I did not like the part with the long unskippable animations, or the linear plots that meant I wasn't allowed to make inferences or find clues out of order, or the missions where you had to just click on this exhaustively until a solution presented itself, or the people who seemed to teleport around the map so there was no logical way to follow them, or the 'guess what the designer was thinking' missions where perfectly valid answers were ignored because they weren't the specific answers the game wanted.”
    • “Each action you take - even small ones - is punctuated by several lines of exposition or dialogue about the story - and sometimes a minigame - which is fine on its own but often jarring, followed by the game forcibly moving the player to another tick for the next part, which also wouldn't necessarily be a problem though it does take control out of the player's hands. The issue arises in how these shifts are very attached to what the story needs the narrative of the puzzle to be: it's not uncommon for the player to find the culprit and be prepared to follow them tick by tick to figure out what's going on or where it and other things they've also figured out meet, only to suddenly be thrown back five or six ticks to what can feel like a completely different scenario, because the story suddenly needs the player to focus on something else or find the culprit in a completely different context - which is where 'it's jarring' and 'outside of player control' start becoming more clear problems.”

  • gameplay

    101 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    28% positive mentions, 57% neutral mentions, 15% negative mentions

    The gameplay centers on a unique hidden-object mechanic combined with time-travel elements that add intrigue and novelty, making initial investigations engaging and visually appealing. However, it is frequently interrupted by excessive, unskippable dialogue and numerous uninspired, repetitive minigames that slow pacing and cause the experience to drag, leading to a sense of tedium after a few hours. While the core gameplay is solid and enjoyable for fans of casual detective puzzles, the intrusive narration and padding hinder sustained enjoyment and limit player freedom.

    • “One of the fun mechanics is that it gives you hints for what you are looking for but not specifically an image, so you have to use those clues to find the criminal and then track them backwards through time to find a good spot in the timeline to stop them from ever committing the crime.”
    • “Still, it's a clever game mechanic with the time manipulation being used to find hidden objects at different moments in time that eventually reveal the solution to a crime.”
    • “The point-and-click gameplay is simple to understand, and there’s a solid hint system that will ensure fans never get frustrated when they simply cannot locate someone or something.”
    • “Sadly, the developers made some gameplay decisions that slow down the entire gameplay loop and cause it to drag on a bit too long (i.e., random minigames between findings which are boring and tedious, or animation loops that can't be skipped).”
    • “The gameplay is interrupted too much which makes playing the game feel so tiring.”
    • “Crime o'clock had so much potential, ruined by quite boring and monotonous gameplay.”

  • graphics

    41 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    61% positive mentions, 32% neutral mentions, 7% negative mentions

    The game's graphics are widely praised for their charming, clean, and detailed art style, featuring cute character designs and clever visual easter eggs that enhance the experience. The primarily black-and-white aesthetic with selective color splashes adds a unique, albeit sometimes confusing, visual twist. Overall, the artwork is considered the standout aspect, elevating the hidden object gameplay despite some issues with visual clarity and repetitive map designs.

    • “The artwork and character designs are terrific, with lots of unique characters to find and great cel-shading that adds depth despite the black and white palette.”
    • “Starting with the positives: the artwork in this game is wonderful and each map is filled with little easter eggs and pop culture references to discover.”
    • “The art style is adorable with just enough detail that it's mesmerizing.”
    • “The art style is clean, but in the main story they love to throw random giant scribbles all over the map that are distracting and you have no way to remove.”
    • “I have zero idea why this game wanted to do a black and white aesthetic, but I can assure you it does nothing to really help this game; if anything, it just adds artificial difficulty and makes the game far worse than it could be.”
    • “The black and white aesthetic can really send you in the wrong direction by not being clear what it is that you're looking at sometimes.”

  • music

    25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    56% positive mentions, 32% neutral mentions, 12% negative mentions

    The game's music is generally praised for being pleasant, thematic, and immersive, often enhancing the atmosphere and matching the game's eras. However, some players find the soundtrack repetitive or distracting after extended play, especially during long conversations or music-based mini-games, which can detract from the overall experience.

    • “The mechanics were fun, the mysteries and plots intriguing, and the art and soundtrack delightful.”
    • “All in all, the game is very fun, the twist (while explained early on) still was very enjoyable, and of course the music in this game is amazing.”
    • “The soundtrack is awesome and I like the idea of incorporating story as long as it doesn't sacrifice the gameplay.”
    • “You have to read long conversations with the same boring background music.”
    • “The one where you have to click on objects to play music is just an annoying waste of a few minutes.”
    • “The fact that it shares the system with a music-based minigame makes having to listen to it that much more annoying.”

  • humor

    18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The humor in the game is broadly appreciated for its clever pop-culture references, quirky AI companion, and amusing scenarios tied to the time-traveling plot, adding charm to the hidden-object gameplay. However, some find the AI's jokes forced and excessive, detracting from the experience. Overall, the humor is quirky and smart, resonating well with fans of lighthearted, puzzle-driven games.

    • “The time-jumping mechanic adds a funny twist to the image search that I really enjoyed, as well as the overarching plot that gave an in-story reason for searching all these images.”
    • “Apart from the main story, many funny (and occasionally quite dark and sad) minor stories are hidden within the lovingly drawn pictures.”
    • “It was hilarious to notice references like Jack Sparrow, Thanos, Star Wars (baby yogurt... I love you for this one), Matrix, or Jesus (lol).”

  • grinding

    13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    Grinding in the game is marked by repetitive and tedious mini-games, frequent overnarration, and slow gameplay loops that detract from the core exploration experience. While maps and stories vary, the increasing length and repetitiveness of missions make progress feel frustrating and time-consuming, causing gameplay to drag after a few hours.

    • “Sadly, the developers made gameplay decisions that slow down the entire loop, causing it to drag on too long, such as random minigames between findings which are boring and tedious, or animation loops that can't be skipped.”
    • “The game is extremely repetitive with simple matching minigames that are time consuming and tedious.”
    • “To make things worse, the missions towards the end of the game are significantly longer, requiring full completion or progress is lost, making gameplay even more tedious.”

  • character development

    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    75% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 25% negative mentions

    The character development is enhanced by unique, charming cartoon designs and a distinctive black-and-white art style with selective color use, which adds depth and interest. However, this visual approach can sometimes detract from the overall experience. The inclusion of an actual story during each case also contributes positively to character engagement.

    • “Love: the art style, the use of colour, character designs, the time-travel mechanic, the fulcrum levels, and the fact that there is an actual story happening during each case.”
    • “The game's presentation primarily in black-and-white with each case adding a relevant splash of colour is an interesting aesthetic, helped by the charmingly cartoonish character designs.”
    • “The artwork and character designs are terrific, with lots of unique characters to find and great cel-shading that adds depth despite everything being in black and white.”
    • “The art style and character design also does a disservice for you at multiple times.”

  • monetization

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The provided text does not address monetization aspects but rather highlights enjoyable in-game exploration details. No information on monetization can be summarized from this input.

  • emotional

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The game’s emotional impact is lacking, with many users finding the story extremely dull and unengaging.

    • “It has a mind-numbingly boring story.”

  • stability

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game demonstrates strong stability overall, with no significant bugs reported; minor issues include occasional misplaced words in Eve's dialogue and some formatting problems causing text to extend off-screen.

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Critic Reviews

71%Critics’ scoreBased on 9 critic reviews
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Play Times

18h Median play time
15h Average play time
10-20h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 2 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Crime O'Clock is a casual puzzle game with mystery, comedy and science fiction themes. Common tags for Crime O'Clock include indie, trading, cute, 2d, choices matter and others.

Crime O'Clock is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac OS and Windows.

On average players spend around 15 hours playing Crime O'Clock.

Crime O'Clock was released on July 21, 2023.

Crime O'Clock was developed by Bad Seed.

Crime O'Clock has received mostly positive reviews from both players and critics. Most players liked Crime O'Clock for its story but disliked it for its grinding.

Crime O'Clock is a single player game.

Similar games include Murder by Numbers, Song of Farca, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders, Crystals of Time, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One and others.